Gay Jewish–New Yorker and libertarian‐leaning classic liberal with some center‐right conservative views who is publishing on ▴ gay and ursine topics ▴ the public domain and freely licensed creative works ▴ Near Eastern, Central Asian, North African and Caucasian topics ▴ linguistics, particularly as relevant to the above populations ▴ Humanist, naturalist or Bright topics ▴ history, understood to include my own personal experiences in and occasionally out of my beloved native city.

21 August 2015

Sciatica I have.

I regret to say that I’ve been diagnosed with another ailment. For the past two weeks, I have had pains in my hip and thigh that led to occasional difficulty walking. I also have some numbness and weakness of the muscles in that leg that led to my knee giving out and my falling into a sitting position on two occasions (on the 13th and 15th, both times while socializing in community organizations).

Sunday night and Monday morning, the pain was at its worst, almost unbearable. It had largely subsided by ten o’clock so I walked to the doctor’s office and was diagnosed with sciatica. My primary care physician’s associate told me how nerve pain is very persistent and how physical therapy doesn’t work for everyone and how they would talk to me about pain management if physical therapy didn’t work for me. Then I went home and looked at Wikipedia—not the most reliable source, I acknowledge—which gave a very different story: “Often all that is required is time and in about 90% of people the problem goes away in less than six weeks.”

Wednesday morning, I limped to the nearby radiology building for a spinal x‐ray, but that night and Thursday morning, I was nearly pain‐free and was able to socialize. I’ll be starting physical therapy next week, but I’m feeling pretty well as I write this; today, only a little pain has returned and it’s intermittent. I’ll keep folks informed should they be interested.

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“Who writes this stuff?”

Elyaqim Mosheh Adam (a.k.a. Mark) is a gay Jewish–New Yorker who promotes his photography, videography and writing here, and who may be reasonably expected to write on any combination of the following:

{The old description: Still trying to strike a balance between a mere cataloging of my experiences, rarely done in a timely manner, and writings about subjects that interest me (linguistics, history etc.).}